Santa Clara, new home to Super Bowl-bound 49ers, beaming with small-town pride

SANTA CLARA -- Unlike in that splashy city up north, the enthusiasm here for the beloved San Francisco 49ers isn't in your face.

Santa Clara doesn't have any prominent buildings lit up in red and gold. There aren't any snazzy flags of players attached to streetposts, or huge 49ers memorabilia luring visitors on the outside of businesses. Instead, the city celebrated the team's trip to the Super Bowl by advertising on its website that the local animal shelter is offering $4 cat adoptions and $9 dog adoptions, complete with Niners-themed photos of your new pet.

But don't be fooled. It may be hard for outsiders to tell, but this is the 49ers' new home. And from City Hall to the local pizza joint to the construction site of the Niners' new stadium, people around Santa Clara are beaming with pride in their own, small-town way.

Vince Latona and Darnell Haynes ( l to r) proudly stand atop the 700 level of the new 49er stadium under construction in Santa Clara, Calif. on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Latona is the site superintendent for Cupertino Electric and Haynes is a foreman. Both are big 49er fans. The city of Santa Clara can shine as 49ers are on the verge of winning another Super Bowl. The construction of the new 49er stadium is well underway with a possible chance to host a Super Bowl in the near future. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)
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Gary Reyes
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And why not? The stadium that numerous skeptics thought would never be built is rising at record speed. The city few outside the Bay Area have heard of is a finalist to host a Super Bowl as soon as 2016. And now the storied 49ers franchise is on top of the football world, playing for an NFL title.

"Around town, people are blown away," said Santa Clara native Kevin Moore, the recently termed-out councilman who helped land the 49ers. "The average person is just stoked that our little town could pull this off."

Walk into Seniore's Pizza on Monroe Street, bring up Sunday's Super Bowl and tow-truck driver Bill Chaves, another lifelong Santa Clara resident, will tell you his city has already taken ownership of the team.

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"I don't know how they can be called the San Francisco 49ers when they're the Santa Clara 49ers," said Chaves, 54, citing the team's impending move and its longtime headquarters and training facility, next to the site of the $1.2 billion stadium that's set to open in 2014. "Now it's going to all be in Santa Clara. It's good for the city."

At the pizza counter, manager Walid Eid proudly displays a 2007 wine bottle emblazoned with a 49ers logo under a handwritten sign that reads "Priceless -- not for sale."

Bill Chaves talks about the pluses and minuses of having the 49ers in his hometown during lunch at Seniore's Pizza in Santa Clara, Calif. on Thursday, January 24, 2013. The city of Santa Clara can shine as 49ers are on the verge of winning another Super Bowl. The construction of the new 49er stadium is well underway with a possible chance to host a Super Bowl in the near future. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)
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Gary Reyes
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"Millions of people will be watching the games" at the new stadium, said Eid, 46. "People who have never heard of Santa Clara will know" the city.

Mayor Jamie Matthews and Moore say the city's low-key style of celebration is indicative of its personality. No one at City Hall is saying, "I told you so," despite what must be a tantalizing urge after years of doubt from the public and media.

"We were confident from the beginning this was going to work out," said Matthews, who in April purchased his own shovel for a star-studded stadium groundbreaking funded by the 49ers.

The only city employees going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl as official representatives are a police lieutenant and sergeant, as part of research for the stadium's security plan. The trip is being paid for with advanced ticket sales and other stadium funds.

Santa Clara is known by some as the home of the Great America theme park, Santa Clara University and tech campuses. But mostly it's a quiet, suburban city of 118,000 residents.

Take a drive to the stadium, which is 30 percent complete overall but looks nearly finished from the outside, and you'll find some more subtle 49ers pride among the 800 construction workers there.

Site superintendent Vince Latona, 36, has been making special vests with 49ers logos on them and giving them to workers after they reach their four-week mark. He has been able to push his workers to longer hours -- part of the secret to why the stadium has risen so fast in eight months -- because he knows everyone wants a chance to work on their team's new home.

"They realize they're a part of history, especially with the team doing so well," said foreman Darnell Haynes, 50. "It's pretty awesome."

Of course, not everyone in town is breaking out the red-and-gold flags.

Longtime Santa Clara resident Richard Evangelho, who lives a few blocks from the stadium site, noted that if the 49ers beat the Baltimore Ravens for their sixth Super Bowl title, the parade and celebration won't be in his town -- it'll be in San Francisco. And if the new stadium in May is picked to host a Super Bowl in either 2016 or 2017, the official host city will be San Francisco, where the related events and the bulk of the hotel stays would be.

"San Francisco wants all the glory," said Evangelho, 62, a retired garbage collector who opposes the team's move south.

Still, if the 49ers win, the Lombardi Trophy commemorating them as NFL champs will be housed in the team's Santa Clara headquarters, along with the previous five.

And the little city is slowly starting to get recognition. Matthews laughed as he recalled being sent a picture from an old friend who had highlighted a newspaper article featuring the Santa Clara stadium.